China Construction Bank (CCB) has said that it plans to cut back on new loans to just US$131.74 billion for all of 2009, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Chinese lender issued US$107.16 billion in new loans in the first half of 2009, leaving only US$24.58 billion in loans to be issued in the second half of the year, a drop of 77%. Analysts said the move was expected as Beijing is considering a crackdown on lending in order to prevent a large number of non-performing loans from appearing in the next few years. New domestic loans in the first six months of the year were US$1.1 trillion or half of China’s GDP for the period. Beijing is also considering raising the minimum capital adequacy ratio, the regulatory minimum for banks that want to make acquisitions or open overseas branches, from its current 10%. The bank said it won’t be hurt by this as its capital adequacy ratio is currently equal to 11.97% of its assets.
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